Becoming a keystone: How incumbents can leverage technological change to create ecosystems

The proliferation of digital technology and automation in the 21st century has created a need to\ua0revisit established theories on value creation. Exponential advances in Internet of Things (IoT)\ua0technologies are dismantling firm- and industry-specific value creation processes. The firms\ua0developing digital technology-based products and services typically participate in broad\ua0networks, which allows them to integrate distinct systems and technologies to produce a focal\ua0value proposition. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how incumbents can leverage\ua0technological change to create an innovation ecosystem.\ua0The concept of an innovation ecosystem is a powerful analogy to explain value co-creation in\ua0a network. In general, ecosystems are broad cooperative networks, in which the actors coalesce\ua0organically and co-evolve through the construction of a value proposition. Although several\ua0scholars have studied value co-creation in an ecosystem, few have explored the process of\ua0ecosystem emergence. Also, extant research on ecosystem primarily investigates orchestration\ua0capabilities from the perspective of technology firms or new entrants that emerge within an\ua0ecosystem. Few empirical studies investigate how incumbent firms can co-create value and\ua0develop capabilities to orchestrate an ecosystem as a keystone actor.In this context, this thesis investigates a manufacturing firm’s efforts to develop a new\ua0technology. The research was designed as an ethnographic in-depth case study of Volvo Car\ua0Group, an incumbent in the automotive industry. The thesis employs a qualitative abductive\ua0research approach to explore the collaborations related to the development of AD technology,\ua0a discontinuous technological change for incumbent automotive firms. Based on a four-year\ua0longitudinal case study and findings from four papers, the thesis makes important contributions\ua0to scholarly understanding of ecosystem emergence in traditional industries.This thesis makes three main contributions to literature on innovation ecosystems: (1) it\ua0describes ‘layered modularity’ as a design mechanism that facilitates joint value creation\ua0leading to the emergence of an innovation ecosystem, (2) it shows how developing physical\ua0products (such as devices or hardware platforms) and digital systems (such as IoT technologies\ua0or software) in distinct layers allows intertwining of divergent innovation activities anddevelopment methods, (3) it distinguishes between three distinct activities – cooperation,\ua0coordination and competition – that incumbents firms need to manage in order to become a\ua0keystone actor and orchestrate the ecosystem. The findings presented in this thesis have\ua0important implications for manufacturing firms looking to leverage a DTC to create new\ua0ecosystems

Joining forces to create value: The emergence of an innovation ecosystem

During periods of discontinuous technological change (DTC), firms seek alliances to obtain new resources and competences. The concept of innovation ecosystems is increasingly used to address joint value creation endeavours. Interactions within an innovation ecosystem are typically organized around a technology platform consisting of shared assets, standards, and interfaces. Yet, few empirical studies explain how innovation ecosystems emerge. Based on a longitudinal case study of autonomous drive technology development at Volvo Car Group, this paper aims at showing how alliances for developing a new technology leads to the emergence of an innovation ecosystem. In the context of a DTC, the paper underlines how the initial resource constraints can be a blessing in disguise that drives a firm to seek new alliances. We identify that the alliances had a significant influence on the technology platform, transitioning it from an internal to a modular technology platform. This triggered the emergence of an innovation ecosystem, consisting of actors co-creating value and organizing around the technology platform. Further, the paper highlights the subtle distinction between modularization for outsourcing and modularization for co-creating value

The emergence of innovation ecosystems: Exploring the role of the keystone firm

During periods of technological change, firms seek new collaborations and sometimes even reach out to competitors in order to obtain new resources and competences. Understanding the collaborations surrounding new technologies has implications for firms pursuing opportunities with new technologies. The notion of ecosystems is increasingly used in literature to address value creation activities involving a network of firms. The purpose of this licentiate thesis is to understand the emergence of new innovation ecosystems. Previous research on ecosystems recognizes “keystone” firm as the anchor that ensure growth and stability in the ecosystem. However, the activities that foreshadow the development of an ecosystem and the role played by a prospective keystone firm in the emergence of an ecosystem is undertheorized. Based on a longitudinal case study of a technology development program at an automotive firm, the findings presented in this licentiate thesis show how the joint venture established by the incumbent firm led to the development of a modular technology. The main findings illustrate how the incumbent automotive firm attracted a network of actors that develop innovative solutions and other complementarities for the technology. The network of actors developing offerings for the modular technology, in turn, facilitated the incumbent firm to position itself as a keystone firm and orchestrate the emergence of a new innovation ecosystem. The thesis contributes to theory by showing how a firm can orchestrate the emergence of an innovation ecosystem and position itself as the keystone firm

Patient Adherence to Tuberculosis Treatment: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Research

From a systematic review of qualitative research, Munro and coauthors found that a range of interacting factors can lead to patients deciding not to complete their course of tuberculosis treatment

The emergence of new innovation ecosystem

Building new innovation ecosystem is a frustrating endeavour but the firms that are successful ecosystem builders establish leadership in the market, says Gouthanan Pushpananthan, of Chalmers University of Technology. He provides an overview of his research and suggests resources for those who want to find out more

The blind leading the mute - Formal leaders’ potential to facilitate institutionalization of the agile myth

More and more firms are moving from a plan-driven to an agile approach to new product development, a transition that entails significant challenges not least for managers and formal leaders. In this context we draw on institutional theory and conceptualize agile development as a myth. By considering the adoption of the agile myth in previously plan-driven product development we illustrate a paradox whereby agile development constrains the existing agility embedded in informal structures. To illustrate this, we provide an example from an ongoing ethnographic study of a product development unit currently undergoing a transition from plan-driven to agile development. We further synthesize our theoretical argument with empirical observations by presenting two distinct personas, The Blind representing the formal structure, and The Mute representing the informal structure, and draw potential from this illustration for how formal leaders can act to overcome the paradox

The role of tactics in R&D: Insights from an autonomous car project

In the pursuit for increasing organizational abilities to respond to external changes, agile is getting traction in the R&D divisions of large hardware-intensive firms. The upsurge in agile transformation programs renders challenges regarding conflicting logics and structures in relation to the legacy plan-driven approach. One of the key ideas of agile is the empowerment of teams. This means that the expectations on teams are changing in terms of what decisions they make and how they make them; and they are expected to take more responsibility for their decisions. In our longitudinal case study of an R&D project at Volvo Car Group that adopted agile, we see that expectations on teams not only include an increase of responsibilityfor decision making, they are also expected to make decisions of a different nature than before. We are motivated particularly by the observations that teams need to relate more to strategy and to other internal teams. By using observations from the project that recent shifted to agile development, we argue that tactics as a concept captures the essence of this shift in how teams make decisions

Possible altered mineral metabolism in human anencephalic fetuses

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